I started by modeling the front of the case. The main reason I did this was to reduce guesswork. It was easy enough to model the separate layers of the front panel to allow proper alignment of the 120mm fan with the airflow path. The first time I disassembled the front panel it was easy to see where the fan needed to go. The plastic layer closest to the case already had a hole which was 117mm wide! Perfect for a 120mm fan (I'm sure the engineer wanted a 120mm fan but Antec PR wanted 2x92mm lol). Height-wise I located the fan so the cutting would align with the pre-punched fan grill squares. Hopefully it would make the task easier.

Here is what the modeling looked like from "inside" the case

This view is from the front. The "transparent" piece is the first black plastic layer. The one which dictated the location of the fan.

This is more for future reference. The location of the hole I cut.

The following is from the Antec NSK3480 Manual, I just wanted to show the plastic I had to cutout from the Stock case. (red rectangle)

I then proceeded to cutting out the front with a my jigsaw, cutting 1.5" holes with a hole-saw+drill then testing the front out.

This is what it looked like. (you can see I applied some acoustic foam to the inside of the front. Because of the way the panel is layered this did not do anything to the airflow except fill up some empty space. And the foam is directly in front of the fan. Hopefully it helps out and does not create too much turbulence)

I transferred the first plastic layer to better illustrate why I chose this fan location. It's a fairly direct airflow pattern.

Now a month later I finally received my Thermalright HR-02. I was able to finalize the build. Here are the results.

As it stands I'm running everything stock. With the fanmate2 at it's lowest speed setting and ambient temperature of 24c my i5 760 barely touches 60 degrees after 15 minutes of prime95. The main reason I wanted an intake fan was for the videocard but after some testing temperatures stay very low so I might try it without the front fan at some point.

very nice work. i like this case and can't wait till antec updates it with usb3.0 connectors. what i don't understand in your work is the mod and trouble to mount a 120mm fan in the front. 2 90mm fans push more air than 1 120mm fan with similar or less noise. or am i wrong?

Since the major concern from the responses are about GPU temp I've ran a quick test running Battlefield Bad Company 2. (the only game installed at the moment lol). I tested DX11 high and DX9 low because I always play low settings and wanted to make sure I was stressing the 5870. CPU usage was around 80-95% most of the time. GPU usage was pegged at 100%.

From the graph below I don't think I'll add holes to the case just yet. I also don't want to keep the card too cool, because the AMD 6000 series are coming out soon and this one frying would give me a good reason to upgrade! But the temps seem to be pretty safe anyways. I'll probably do a run later with only the exhaust fan.

** Ambien temperature ~23.5 celcius*** I played 40 minutes with the case fully open to see if I was hurting GPU temps and the max VRM case open was 89.

m1st wrote:

The bokeh on the last picture is beautiful. Actually, given how demanding the shooting environment is, many of the shots show great bokeh. What camera system did you use?

Thanks, I was using my canon 50D with the 24-105F4L. Was also using F7.1 to get the entire case in focus.

Luke M wrote:

I like ntavlas's suggestion of a bottom fan. Another idea is to place a divider between the CPU and graphics card, so the intake and exhaust fans work in parallel rather than in series.

A cardboard seperation could work really well for sure. I think dividing the intake fan vertically into two areas would be my best bet to improve fresh air to the videocard. I could also force the air out through the videocard vented backplate and the square hole mesh of the case (besides the PCI slots)

KadazanPL wrote:

Does you Xonar DX work without the additional power cable? I wish I could force mine to do that!

I cheated for the picture! lol. I installed the 4 pin floppy cable right after the pictures. You can also see that the front 120mm fan isn't plugged in yet.

sanse wrote:

very nice work. i like this case and can't wait till antec updates it with usb3.0 connectors. what i don't understand in your work is the mod and trouble to mount a 120mm fan in the front. 2 90mm fans push more air than 1 120mm fan with similar or less noise. or am i wrong?

1 of my reasons for cutting a hole for the 120mm fan is that for some reason in stock form about 1/3rd of the bottom 92mm fan is blocked off by the first plastic layer. It's probably not a major issue, but I felt like made more sense. As for the 2x92mm vs 1x120mm, I don't have a good answer lol. I had 120mm fans lying around and I've never owned a 92mm fan. I also wanted to use my brand new jigsaw!

kater wrote:

Dude you forgot your cables? Where are your cables? No cables? WTF?

I knew someone would ask about the cables haha. I didn't take a picture because it's not pretty lol. It's dark outside so I'll post one tomorrow. it basically looks like Krick's NSK3480 cables, but I have more. Let's just say I'm almost standing on the case while when I have to force the back panel on!

As requested here are shots of messy part of the build haha. I tried keeping them hidden but I guess they have to be shown. The SSD floating around in there by itself.

Now for the optical drive, I only had a samsung laying around. Fortunately because the Seasonic X750 is such a wonderful PSU the engineers placed all the connectors exactly 1 bay high. This means that the entire top bay is available cable-free for an optical drive! The only special thing I needed was 90degree stata and sata power connectors. Which I had laying around. The SATA power connector is only a molex extension, but it does the trick.

Plenty of space to go around!

As for the Seasonic X750 fan spinning up. At stock CPU speed I have not heard it spin up at all. Even when stressing the CPU. Last night I booted at 4.2Ghz for fun (I was not expecting to boot at all!) and the CPU must suck alot more power at 4.2Ghz because when I stressed it the fan would start maybe 20 seconds every 4 minutes. I won't be running 4.2Ghz for sure, I'll probably settle on around 3.6 with stock voltage if possible.

Tight fit. I was looking at the NSK-3480 and Seasonic X series recently. Ended up going with a different case in part because I wasn't sure a standard optical drive would fit. Had considered just using a mobile optical drive and adapter if a standard 5.25" drive didn't fit, but it would have cost quite a bit more.

I did do a 120mm hole in the bottom of the nsk3480, with a Nexus 120mm pointing right on the Accelero S1 cooler. I have no front intake fan anymore. It was VERY noisy to do with the jigsaw but worked well. The only reason the fan runs at 650rpm is that its the lowest rpm at which it will reliably start.

Since I am borrowing your project as a go-by for my own build, Druneau, I'll piggy-back some of my own observations here.

Kirk (the original inspiration) indicated a preference for using a nibbler tool as opposed to a hole saw (mounted to a drill). I tried a nibbler .... when I finally found one. Wish I had gone with a hole saw. There are only two kinds of hand nibblers. One is cheap and flakey. Mine was beefy (Klein Tools brand) and cost $30 off the shelf. The complication with both nibblers is you have to cut blind. Messy!!! The Klein also has a 1/4" cut but requires a larger pilot hole to fit the "square peg" through. Those drill bits get pricey for a 1/4" shaft.

I did find narrower rubber grommets than Druneau and Kirk had. Oh, you will want a hole as close to 1 1/2" as possible--for the 20/24 pin cable. But ... but!! Make sure to cut the hole to the dimensions of the grommet you are able to find. Grommets don't grow on trees, either.

I have to abandon using a 3.5" HDD under the optical drive--in the psu chamber. There's not enough room with the cables crossing over to the mobo backer board; and plus those into the drive. Will put the SSD into the bay. The HDD has to go into the bottom receptacle. Was hoping to avoid sending SATA power that far.

The graphics card is last, but for rear fan and 3.5" bay. I have two 12v, 6-pin harnesses through the new cut holes snaking behind the mobo tray and over to the gpu. They are too short. Never assume!

My option is to dismantle the psu chamber of optical drive and psu, and try to get the gpu harnesses out the left side of the chamber through the mfr's. cable port. The extra 4-pin cpu power cable may need to abandon same port and be routed behind the mobo tray. I hope this works (fingers crossed).

I did a similar 3480 build with hole cutting (really poorly done with a cheap nibbler). I don't currently have an optical drive installed, but I do have a 3.5" drive suspended in the bottom 5.25" bay up top and should be able to fit an optical drive if I really wanted to. My trick was to use a different, non modular PS and orient it so that the wire bundle came out of the back and directly through the backplane. I leave all of the spare cables behind the backplane. That would also be a spectacular place to tuck your SSD.

I run the CPU 4pin power through the bottom facing OEM slot and the SATA cables all the way down the back side to a set of holes I drilled at the far bottom of the back plane. There is actually *just* enough room to squeeze them between the motherboard and the chassis if you route the SATA cables before you mount the motherboard. I also run all of my chassis front panel connectors the same way.

Hey, Just a follow-up...My case is collecting dust bunnies. So it must be time to peel apart plastic and wires for the inevitable cleaning...

I also need to send ASUS mobo to junk heaven. I like the simplicity (management) of their equipment, but it is no fun watching parts and pieces fail. This time I had only two ram slots of the four that were good at the get-go. A few weeks into geriatric recreation, a couple nasty messages every time I woke up Gramp's. Now, he is falling off into shutoff, after I start him up. Another, stab on the boot button, and he continues where he ended previously. Crazy...

I am going to try and get a Gigabyte micro in, without any further updates--ie., Money$$.

There is fan noise, and the little black and silver case is only 18, maybe 20 inches from my ear. Possibly, caused by the GPU. That's a big, BIG honkin piece of plastic.

Finally got an Intel 1156 micro board. Not very many are available now. Hope it works... This guy is nowhere near obsolete. Just ASUS.

Collecting my OS re-install files. I dread going into that case!

BTW, the fan noise is the gpu. Not obnoxious but can be heard, like air "whoosshhing". Low humm.

The wife's machine (Gigabyte) still hums along, in spite of all the spam and malware she digs up and throws at it. Periodically I go in an clean out the slugs she has invited in. Yesterday I found two active virus scanner applications.

Hi,Switched out boards yesterday. Today I am hunting down my old forums, and struggling to install [correct] programs.

A note;I found the Intel DH55tc matx board to be far easier to use than the ASUS board. The only drawback is lack of SATA ports; and the fact that the main cluster is directly under the gpu card. That nixes two of the too few ports, already.

Also, the card inserts at the very top of the card bays, so leaves a lot of room to swirl air under the gpu. Great fix to a tight fit on ASUS. The ATI 5870 definitely puts out heat, even with minimal use, like now. So, moving the intake fan to the base of the front will split circulation between gpu and cpu cooling tower. It would be very easy to create an ad hoc third chamber for the gpu, as it rests 3/8" from the front fan, and blocks 3/5ths of the rest of the case.

With a front fan split midway, feeding both sides of the card, blocking from the card to sidewall, and reopen vent just in front of the rear fan, circulation will benefit both chambers.

The only thing, and it always bothers me, is that everything below the tower, next to and on the board, are in a backwash--if even that--of air movement.

hbm, do you have actual temperature readings for your 5870? I notice druneau's temperature graph disappeared. The 5870 is lots hotter than the 7870 i want to fit but i'm trying to gauge just what i can fit in my 3480 when it is modified in this way plus a few little creations of my own

Hi, Skree. Just for you, I downloaded and installed MSI Afterburner to get a GPU temperature. There is a pronounced paucity of temperature monitoring from gpu manufacturer's. In the past I was confident that they initiated driver updates just to remove said capability from card- provided software, eg., Gigabyte, which was first to cross my radar. To the goods:

The gpu at normal idle, and minimal cpu useage, is 57c/58c temperature. The others, from Intel Utilities:

CPU Processor = 17c - 20cPCH =59cVR = 40cDimm = 35c

I have 3 aftermarket fans (20cm). In, out, and third pushing through the cpu tower. I really don't need the tower fan. The two little gpu fans just swirl warm air onto the card.

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